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Roles of Women in Ancient Rome
In the beginning of the Roman Empire, women developed rights in a patriarchal society. Women found ways in which their lives could be more than just a housewife, they became more creative and educated.
Women in Ancient Rome lived in a patriarchal society and as a child, the girl would be under a manus and betrothal to her first husband. A dowry was given to both parties of the family and was controlled by the paterfamilias. Marriage was essential to Roman civilization because it kept the population growing, and it provided heirs to thrones or plots of land etc. In order to be married there was four requirements that was listed in the article, “[both] must be free citizens…; must have consent of a relative or
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guardian…; dowry was given…; and a written documentation of the marriage”. Slaves could be married but it did not count in the eyes of the law. Any children born under slavery automatically became slaves, unless they were manumitted. The child of the slave that was manumitted was would be considered a citizen. In the new empire women were not considered a nuisance as they were before, because in the article it stated, “…men were seeking and even following the advice of their wives”. If a divorce occurred in a roman marriage, proof was need from both sides. A law was passed that allowed women to divorce in which it provided safety for them, for example an abusive marriage. If women cannot provide proof of divorce, for example “being adulteress, preparer of poison, or planned murder”, she was sent to an island and she lost all her dowry, and if and man cannot find proof of “adulteress, pimping,, etc.” he had to return her dowry. Since men had greater power, any children involved in a marriage the husband had full custody over the children and the wife 1/6 of her dowry per child. A divorce cannot happen between concubines because that article states that is had “…it had no legal validity and will not be supported court, if a women was caught cheating no charges would be brought against her”. Women of Rome developed what was considered high fashion back them, “tunics”.
Tunics were are two rectangles tied together by the top. Making clothing required labor in which slaves did, was very expensive. Women developed different styles of fashion like the “stola”, and different hairdos. There were different categories of slaves, the ones who did clothing labor and hair in which lived pleasant lives unlike the regular slave that worked on farms or for citizens. Many slaves sacrificed their hair to make wigs. Citizens often complained because “…slaves often went out on their own and citizens complained that they were unable to tell a difference”. Many women tried to fit because when a new emperors’ wife developed a new hairdo republican women citizens started to copy her and create their own styles, especially when Augustus wrote “The Art of Love – in which it taught men and women how to be attractive to be each other”.
Women played major roles in shaping roman society. Women became more educated and diligent. They were given more rights compared to other civilizations that arose around the same time. They were now protected by law and help them escape abusive or bad marriage. Women of ancient had their own actions and it can lead them to their on consequence, if not prosperity. For the first times women were being listened by there
husbands.
A woman was not seen as being equal to a man. This is clear in the laws dealing with marriage. Women were contractually obligated to remain with their husbands only, while their husbands were permitted to have a mistress or second wife. If a woman was caught with another man, she would be drowned (“The Code of Hammurabi”). Another thing that shows that women were not equal to men is the fact that they could be sold into slavery by their husbands at any time. Women did, however, have some rights such as the right to own property and the right to inherit and pass down that property. They also played very important roles in society. Some of these roles included shop owners, bakers, or scribes (Judge and Langdon,
The Significance of Women in the Imperial Family During the time of the Roman Empire women were not allowed to play any part of the political life of the empire. However, women were still able to influence powerful men and manipulate them to use their power. for the wants of the woman. The most powerful woman in the Roman society was either the wife of a principal or the mother of one. Examples of influential women in the imperial family include Livia Drusilla, Julia.
It can easily be seen that while men were considered to be the most powerful and wisest humans and gods, women had the power to significantly influence these men. From Uta-napishti's wife who convinced Uta-napishti to tell Gilgamesh about the plant that would make him young again to the examples mentioned above, several women were put in roles that had important effects on the men they encountered. Of course, this is not much different from the society we live in today. While many may believe that women have still not reached the point of true equality, it is hard to say that they are inferior and the significance of their roles in society is undeniable.
In ancient Greek society women lived hard lives on account of men's patriarch built communities. Women were treated as property. Until about a girl’s teens she was "owned" by her father or lived with her family. Once the girl got married she was possessed by her husband along with all her belongings. An ancient Greece teenage girl would marry about a 30-year-old man that she probably never met before. Many men perceived women as being not being human but creatures that were created to produce children, please men, and to fulfill their household duties. A bride would not even be considered a member of the family until she produced her first child. In addition to having a child, which is a hard and painful task for a teenage girl in ancient civilization to do, the husband gets to decide if he wants the baby. A baby would be left outside to die if the husband was not satisfied with it; usually this would happen because the child was unhealthy, different looking, or a girl.
In Titus Livius’ The Early History of Rome, Livy recollects infamous incidents throughout Rome’s history that helped develop the political and social values for the citizens in Rome. Livy was able to accomplish a didactic function of story-telling by craftily introducing two essential female heroines from Roman history. These two women were incredibly influential because they were able to help formulate and embodied many of the fundamental values in Rome. Some of the core Roman principles included: courageously facing death to uphold honour and valour, piety and chastity among its people, and banding together against tyrannical kings or individuals of immoral ethics; all deeply revered elements of an individual’s character that were praised by the Romans. In both of Livy’s tale about the female heroics of Lucretia and Verginia, the similar story elements and circumstances found in both heroines stories are astounding. The rape, and subsequent deaths of both Lucretia and Verginia ultimately helped unite the common people of Rome, created social and moral expectations of all women living in Rome, and represented the romanticized Roman idea of bravely facing death to retain or restore an individuals honour and reputation in Roman society. Without the significant sacrifices from both of these noble, heroic women, many of the traditional Roman values during this period in history, and even in today’s society, would be unfounded.
What would do if someone raped you or sexual harassed you? Most likely you would prosecute them in court. What would you do if you were told you couldn’t prosecute them because you were a lower class woman? This was the scenario in Ancient Rome. Everything depended on your gender, status, and job. Even though women have fewer rights than men, women still had a legal and social position in Ancient Rome. Women had a position in marriage and family life. There were also a lot of women that were in religious groups, were prostitutes, and were slaves.
As women started working, patriarchal control of the family was upset (Faragher 400). Women were now bringing in income just like the men were and to them this was empowering. They now longer depended on a man to survive. Now that women were working many also wanted an education beyond high school. Women started going to college and with a better education were able to further increase the interest of the women 's rights movements (Knight 361). Despite these advances women still were not close to gaining equality to their male counterparts. However they did gain more control of the family’s well being.
Women in antiquity did not have an easy lot in life. They had few, if any, rights. Surviving early records of the civilizations of antiquity from ancient Greece, Egypt, China, and Rome suggest the diversity of women’s roles differed little from region to region. There were a few exceptions, mostly concerning women of nobility and the city-state of Sparta. Excluding the rare instances mentioned most antique women were generally limited on education, mobility, and almost all possibilities interfering with domestic or childbearing responsibilities. The limited social roles of women in antiquity suggest the perceived c...
Greek and Roman women lived in a world where strict gender roles were given; where each person was judged in terms of compliance with gender-specific standards of conduct. Generally, men were placed above women in terms of independence, control and overall freedom. Whereas men lived in the world at large, active in public life and free to come and go as they willed, women's lives were sheltered. Most women were assigned the role of a homemaker, where they were anticipated to be good wives and mothers, but not much of anything else. The roles of women are thoroughly discussed in readings such as The Aeneid, Iliad, Sappho poetry, and Semonides' essay.
Family roles in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome were a very important part of life.
Henrik Ibsen once said, “A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.”(Notable Quotes) Ibsen’s statement exemplifies what life was like for women during ancient times. In many of the organized ancient civilizations, it was very common to find a primarily patriarchal civilization in government as well as in society. The causing factors can be attributed to different reasons, the main being the Neolithic Revolution and the new found dependence on manpower it caused. As a result of this, a woman found herself to be placed into an entirely different view in the eye of society. In comparison to the early Paleolithic matriarchal societies, the kinds of changes that came about for women due to the introduction of agriculture are shocking. Since the beginnings of the Neolithic era, the role and rights of women in many ancient civilizations began to become limited and discriminatory as a result of their gender.
Women in Ancient Rome In Roman times women were treated differently depending on their class, and family background. However Roman women off all social classes were expected to assume, that they were merely possessions of their fathers and then of their husband. Many Romans told a story (below) about a woman named Cornelia, a Roman woman of the second century BC: An upper-class women from Campania was staying with Cornelia, a mother of the Gracchi brothers. She continually boasted about her jewels which were the most beautiful to be seen at that time, Cornelia kept her talking until her children returned home from their lessons, then she said to the women: "these are my jewels" Valerius Maximus (1st Century.
In the Greek society women were treated very differently than they are today. Women in ancient Greece were not allowed to own property, participate in politics, and they were under control of the man in their lives. The goddess Aphrodite did not adhere to these social norms and thus the reason the earthly women must comply with the societal structure that was set before them. Aphrodite did not have a father figure according to Hesiod, and therefore did not have a man in her life to tell her what to do. She was a serial adulteress and has many children with many men other than her husband. She was not the only goddess from the ancient Greek myths to cause doubt in the minds of men. Gaia and the Titan Rhea rise up against their husbands in order to protect their children. Pandora, another woman in the Greek myths, shows that all evil comes from woman. Aphrodite, Gaia, Rhea, and Pandora cause the ancient Greek men to be suspicious of women because of her mischievous and wild behavior.
Families were the basis of Roman society while the dominant males-paterfamilias, “held absolute authority over his children” (Spielvogel 129) and others in his household . Roman citizens were classified with three names to differentiate them from other families, but women were usually only known by one. “Females shall remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority”, (Spielvogel 119) upper-class women were never granted true freedom, but they started making breakthroughs and found ways around the “guardianship” of the males in their households.
From the expansion days of Ancient Rome to the fall of the Roman Empire, women have always succumbed to living subjacent to the status of their omnipotent and dominant male figures. After leaving her childhood home and the rule of her father, a young Roman girl would then be coerced into the dominion of her husband, often taking a plethora of roles, ranging from lover, caretaker, and best friend. It is often lightheartedly stated that, “Behind every great man is an even greater woman,” and William Shakespeare exemplifies this concept beautifully in Julius Caesar, in which he effectively used the spouses of the two main characters to add more depth, drama, and literary elements to the play, bringing it to life. Although the only two female characters in Julius Caesar, Portia and Calpurnia do not play a pivotal role in the overall plot of the story, their presence is vital in illuminating and developing the characters of their husbands, Brutus and Caesar. What they reveal about their husbands leads the reader to infer that Portia is the more admirable and redeeming character.